Welcome to the Reps Website!

This is the Student Reps minisite, a source of information for reps, potential reps and any students who want to understand the role and how you are being represented! Every year students have the opportunity to get involved in the direction of their department, and to influence the educational experience.

Quick links:

Who are Student Reps?

Advocates wanted, advert for student reps

Over years Student Representatives have added to a long line of proactive and engaged members of the SOAS community volunteering to ensure that the student voice is raised at various institutional forums and whose activity has led to initiatives in teaching and learning development at SOAS and to broader enhancements to the student experience of their peers.

Student Representatives are the essential link between students, academic and professional services teams, and the Students’ Union. In becoming a rep you will coordinate with other reps in your department to divide and undertake various responsibilities and duties, including:

Gathering student views, thoughts and opinions and raising these with relevant members of staff within your academic department and/or at various institutional forums across the School, such as Student Union General Meetings and SU consultative processes;
Regularly liaising with SOAS’ Professional Services teams (such as the Library and SOAS Careers Service) to ensure that the student voice of your community informs review and enhancement processes within these service areas;
Highlighting issues you are passionate about, such as sustainability or inclusion, and working with individuals from across SOAS to support School-wide initiatives in these areas;
Attending department meetings and the Student Feedback Panel.

What is the benefit to being a rep?

Reps who participate in the training and attend meetings will gain the most from the role.

Affect positive change.
Strengthen your C.V and develop transferable professional skills via the Student Representative training programme.
Develop meaningful connections with members of the SOAS community, both inside and outside the classroom.
Expand and enrich your experience as part of the SOAS community.
Gain an insight into how higher education institutions function.
Receive a Personal Reference Letter on successful completion of your role.

New for 2020/21: A new training programme has been developed to give reps more choice in expanding your skills through the year. The options are all relevant tot eh role, but are also transferable into many qorkplace situations, and can enhance a CV.

Core training: All-rep networking; Diversity, Inclusion and Implicit Bias; Time Management; Understanding conflict
Further options: Coaching skills; Resilience

What does the role entail?

All reps at SOAS are part of a broader team of reps within their academic department. There are two distinct rep roles available within each department, Student Representatives and 1x School-level Student Representative.

Each team will divide responsibilities so that all tasks are covered: Student Representatives will work at the module and programme-level, while School-Level Student Representatives will attend department meetings and bring issues to the School-wide Student Feedback Panel (SFP).

Student reps make student opinion heard within their department and relay information from lecturers and meetings back to the student body. They are essentially a conduit for student opinion.

Specifically, reps:

Listen to students so that when issues arise on their courses they can pass this on to the relevant person (whether that be their personal tutor, head of department, course convenor, student advice and wellbeing etc).
Raise issues in department meetings and other relevant forums. Reps ensure that when they raise an issue that all members of the meeting agree on an action to be taken.
Relay important information to the students.
Between the team of reps you could also organise study sessions, book rooms, suggest curriculum reforms, organise student meetings, meet with other reps.

The role has boundaries built in so that it is both manageable and appropriate in what is entailed. Reps should not:

Provide any support that goes beyond your means - especially in terms of mental health support. Making referals to the right services is important to the role. There are other services for these matters.